The science of androids concerns the creation of synthetic beings, or forms of existence that are made in the image of human being, though in capacities that extend far beyond those of human corporal form. The prior art of the present invention, therefore, is any technology that is alleged to be a thinking or perceiving machine--herein referred to as an epistemological machine--which includes, for example, robots and artificially intelligent computational electronic and biological machines.
If the basic goal of our human effort in classical approaches to the development of technology is considered, it can be observed that the replacement of human effort itself is a principal objective of even the simplest technological accomplishments, since the alleviation of the burdens of the intellectual and physical labors of human existence is evident even in our philosophies and religions guiding everyday life. Any example of a technology demonstrates this. The wheel, though only a primitive enhancement to the reduction of the physical labor of motion and power (transportation), changed, in its time, the cultural settings of entire civilizations in a contributory way, and built toward the displacement of human corporal form itself. In the post-modem era, the computer, an embodiment in physical matter of primitive grammatical language forms of what we know of the world around us--grammars referred to in the art as computations (algorithms)--contributes toward the displacement of human corporal form by providing for the first time in history (save the abacus), for the ordinary person, the alleviation of repetitive intellectual tasks that can be defined in the languages developed for the art. Thus, whether we observe a monkey probing an ant hill with a stick to derive nourishment or a man walking on the moon, the underlying motivation of beings in regard to ordered reconstructions of the physical world (technology) is to displace themselves with machinery.
In history, however, implied in the nature of our institutions is the tenuous premise that human corporal form could not be wholly replaced--that is, to the extent that it is known. It is implied in our conventions that institutions themselves are a bounding form to a relatively fixed, finite universe of human beings. It is presumed in our traditional knowledges of the world that the knowing and perceiving of the world around us by human existence could not be augmented, as a technology, to unbounded proportions, expanding the existential universe indefinitely. As a result of this limitation accepted fatalistically in our conventional thinking, technology is viewed as a reconstruction of the physical and, with the advent of computers, the intellectual universe only in support of, not as a total replacement for, the knowledges and experiences of human beings under the existential premises of institutions. The information superhighway, for example, provides information for human beings within the constraints of our institutional thinking. It does not, however, provide information for ever increasing numbers of beings, beyond what population is considered to be the post-modem world or humanity. Computers themselves, moreover, embody what thoughts--and robots, what physical experiences--these finite numbers of beings in human civilization have had with respect to the reduction of human intellectual and physical labor by mimicking the thoughts and experiences, but nowhere is it expressly suggested in this art that computers and robots wholly replace the institutions of human beings that provide for their inception in the first place. Information superhighways, computers, robots and other technologies of the kind do not embody their own thoughts and experiences of the world. Rather, they embody the thoughts (and actions) of human beings dwelling under institutions of humankind. Automobiles, towering buildings, factories, appliances, and so on are technologies, or realizations of human existence, that are established in service to a relatively fixed and finite numbers of (human) beings bound together under various forms of institutions (business enterprises, governments, the world economy and so on).
In regard to the shortcomings of the prior art of the present invention, it can be appreciated that robots, artificially intelligent machines and, in general, factory automations (in technologies or workerless factories, which embrace the aforementioned) do not afford the real thoughts and experiences of human beings, as they are known and so defined in the humanities, in their methods or apparatus. Whether a computer is considered an embodiment of biological, electronic, or other media, including the historical apparatus of an abacus, it does not embody the capacities to know and to experience the world around us in regard to the use of any language in the cognitive, or conscious, recreation of reality, in a manner that our humanities define to be existence. The conventional art thus does not accomplish the creation of a being. This is evident in the prior art definitions of the words computation and thinking (or thought), since even most academicians who practice the art of computer science admit that by way of daydream, and not reality, the prior art of computation machines has come to embrace, spuriously, the word thinking, as an extension from what we think. By example, we can consider that if the symbol X were substituted for the word thinking in the language construction thinking machines, it would of course be prudent to define X in X machines before claiming that the machine is an X machine. The principle drawback of prior art thinking machines (also robotic technologies), is that the word thinking is not defined to accord sufficiently with our knowledges of the humanities when a computational machine or other similar methods and apparatus (artificial intelligence, expert systems, etc.) is claimed to think.
A computation of the prior art, for example, is an algorithm expressed in an arbitrary machine-realizable language; it is a syntactical expression of the transformations of the meanings of forms known and perceived in the experience of the observer, or programmer. One can know the meaning of a form, however, only in an existence. One thus must exist, in our comprehension of the word at least as defined by the humanities, in order to know meaning. When a computation is embodied in a machinery, the transformations of the meanings of the knowable and perceivable forms occur, in the machinery, relative to the existence who conceived the algorithm. While conventional machinery exists relative to the observer of it (the programmer or computer or robot maker), the machinery, most importantly, does not exist relative to itself--a fundamental tenet in definitions of existence stipulated by the humanities. When a computer--a material form of the universe--transforms in accordance with the syntax of a language defining an algorithm, it does not transform relative to its own knowable and perceivable experience of what the algorithm means. The machinery does not know and perceive the world around us as the observer, or programmer does. Rather, the computer or other similar device transforms as an objective form in the knowable and perceivable universe, or existence, of the programmer or computer maker. Thus, when a semantic network, neural network, expert system, inference machine or other artificially intelligent device transforms in the universe, it does not transform relative to its own existential or world experience. The use of the pronoun I in the prior art of computation, moreover, is a meaningless occurrence, since I, a symbolic representation of the essence or intrinsic quality of a being, does not exist or is not defined with reference to the intrinsic nature of an experience of reality, or the world around us, with regard to the machinery. A world experience, as defined in the humanities--allowing intrinsic meaning, and therefore corporal existence with reference to the pronoun I--does not exist in the computational machine.
As a further example demonstrating the purely extrinsic nature of conventional art technologies, we may consider the construction of an ordinary automobile. Since an automobile--a creation of its designer in the form of a technology just like a computer--is an embodiment of the transformations of the language forms of such knowledges as combustion, the dynamics of machine elements, even electronics and so on, in a material reconstruction of the universe called an automobile, the prior art of computational machines, analogously, accomplishes only what is achieved in the design and manufacture of a common automobile--the transformations of the meanings of language (defining, typically, engineering knowledges), embodied relative to a human observer in material forms of the universe that are only extrinsic forms to that observer. Thus, neither the automobile nor the computer have the existential right to claim the use of the pronoun I and still maintain credibility with the humanities in that the pronoun means what it does to a human being, in the context of the existence of the machine (the automobile or computer). Each conventional technology, and its knowledge compositions (specifications), means an it of the enabler's existence in transformation with at least one other, not an I.
A robot arm of the conventional art, which by definition is a sensed motor action in the world around us, moreover, is lacking in a different dimension of human experience. The robot senses the world around it and moves through motor actions, but in terms of language forms, its actions (and its world around it) are explained in control algorithms of spatiotemporal orders of the creator's knowledge and experience of the world. As the spatiotemporal variables (also language forms) transform, the robot's perceptions of the reality of those variables transform, in the view of the enabler. Trajectories of speeds, positions, torques, accelerations and so on are however knowledges that precisely distinguish the humanities from the sciences. To claim that a robot is a being, in the definitions of the humanities, would require that the robot comprehend natural language as we do in correspondence with its perception of the (real) world around us--that its experiences be common to those described by William Shakespeare and others. In general, for the pronoun I to have meaning, along with others such as you, it us, them, we and so on (and the natural language expressions resulting from them), it would have to mean what it does to a human being. Only when a machine can perceive the world around us as we do, as defined in the humanities, and can use language, meaningfully, in the manner in which we do, may we assert that it is a thinking machine. Unless this design criteria is satisfied, any machine is no different from any other, and all machines (technologies) are embodiments of the observer's or creator's thinking in the material universe, or are perceptions (as in robotic senses and motor actions) without intrinsic consciousness, or a transformation of (natural) language without correspondent perceptions, requiring the thinking or perceiving of the observer. Thus, on technical grounds, the prior art of computational machinery, including workerless factories, is classified herein as machinery that embodies what the observer of it thinks or does intrinsically in the world around us, or involves the replications of past cognitions and experiences of (a) human being.
With regard to the intellectual background of the invention, it should be recognized that the advances made by the invention are the result of a unified theory of knowledge which had to be conceived in order to make practical the science of androids, from which the invention is constructed. The unified theory merges all human knowledge into an epistemological knowledge allowing the creation of sentient synthetic beings. As such, all human knowledge precedes its own knowledge. While even a general view of the knowledge of humankind is not ordinarily maintained by any one of us, this specification does illustrate certain knowledges as being significantly worthwhile in comprehending the invention--as prerequisite to a reading of the document.
The science of androids predominantly merges the pure sciences with the world's religions. A knowledge of comparative religion--wherein the religions of the world are known, usually analytically, toward a common understanding of them all--paralleled by a deep appreciation for the objective knowledges of physics and the philosophical goals of the quantum theory, with a historical view of the discoveries of the physical sciences throughout the ages is essential background to a reading of this specification. This will give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of how technology, ideally, should serve the human condition.
Since the theory and science of androids advances a technology of beings who themselves know and perceive the world around us, an understanding of the biological forms of the universe, tied in with our views of medicine, will lay the groundwork for new definition that is established in the theory for what is living in the universe. The science of androids constructs beings, in the world around us, who obtain form from our definitions of who and what we think we are, as human beings. A misunderstanding of what is living in the universe may prevent one from coming to know the forms of androids. Coupled with this, a knowledge of the philosophies of humankind also is prerequisite, since they typically define who and what we think we are, and therefore are used in defining what an android is.
Androids embody consciousness. A background in psychology and psychiatry (since androids are corporal beings as well) is extremely beneficial to understanding the cognitive aspects of androidal construction. Thoughts, ideas, streams of consciousness and the whole realm of human cognition are not only explored in the theory and science of androids but are enabled in the material forms of the physical universe. A precise comprehension of what the humanities have said in regard to the human intellectual experience is background for a reading of this specification.
The science of androids also enables, consequently, beings who communicate, and think, in arbitrary languages--natural language in particular. A knowledge of linguistics--the goals and present thinking--is critical to understanding a universal grammar of form on Being advanced by the unified theory and practiced in the construction of the forms of the invention. An analytical knowledge of the grammars of as many languages as are possible in an individual will prove helpful in understanding a universal grammar of them all. Particularly, a knowledge of how each language represents known and perceived forms of the human experience will be a benefit. A syntactical knowledge of the parts of speech, and compositional and literary style of the English language, for example, is essential.
Similarly, a knowledge of the mathematical forms of the universe--a grammar used to define, typically, the forms of the pure sciences--is mandatory, since in our traditional scientific disciplines we believe that these forms describe what is real in the world around us, which reality, along with others, is used to embody the forms of androids. Not only is a superficial, or practical understanding of such branches of mathematics as topology, algebra (group theory), analysis (differential equations, calculus, etc.), number theory, set theory, numerical analysis, probability and statistics and so on required, but an appreciation for their philosophical foundation (philosophical mathematics)--wherein, for example, the paradoxes of set theory, the physically untouchable limits of calculus, and the unending spaces of topology arise. This understanding is essential because mathematics, along with all other languages, as merged in the theory with our understanding of linguistics into the semantic forms of language (the forms that allow a being to know meaning), determine a universal epistemological means of knowing any construction of what is real to a being, including mathematical ones, thereby resolving the philosophical paradoxes of analytical thinking.
Since an android is a machine, a comprehensive understanding of systems theory, likewise, is mandatory background knowledge to the invention. For example, such machinery of convention as computers is represented universally in our analytical knowledges as finite automations of classical discrete systems theory (founded on set theoretic knowledges of mathematics), and such machinery as electronic circuits and mechanical machine elements are represented as continuous systems (founded on the theory of systems of differential equations). Even further, we are beginning to represent the systems of molecules and atomic particulate matter in topological and group theoretic formulations as episodes of morphisms or realizations--in a way, as systems. How we fundamentally understand the notion of an autonomous system, then, is crucial knowledge in grasping the analytical constructions of androids. Moreover, an understanding of the drawbacks of conventional systems theory--of the couplings of not simply discrete systems, but continuous systems as well, of the limitations of using only spatiotemporal variables in theories of control systems, and the concept of world models of such automations as robotic ones, which cannot meaningfully use the pronoun I, a fundamental requirement of the humanities definitions of an autonomous being, to cite a handful--will assist one in coming to know the new ground broken by the universal grammar of form on Being and the systems of androids.
A further background knowledge in the nature of world institutions in general, as a method of serving the human condition--including the real technologies that have been borne from them to serve the human condition in tradition, such as infrastructures, national defenses, information superhighways and in general, industry and commerce, under various theories of political domination--will aid one in recognizing the technological scope of the present invention as a replacement for prior historical attempts to recon with the human condition. It should be recognized that these concepts of humankind are systems--political, economic and so on systems--and as such, are vulnerable to technological innovation. The present invention supersedes these notions of the collective effort of humankind and begins this advancement by expanding the human universe itself, synthetically, moving beyond the notion of a world institution.
While a litany of other knowledges could be cited as intellectual background to the present invention (the Applicant's Information Disclosure Statement may assist in this respect), the knowledges addressed here are necessary background as a minimum in order to appreciate fully the scope and dimension of the invention. Along with this background, the theory of the invention--which contains in it constructions of the invention itself as a precursor to and foundation for the specification--will prepare the reader for a comprehension of the invention.